The X-Axis – 19 December 2010
It’s Christmas! Well, it’s not really. But it’s the last X-Axis before Christmas (and given that this week’s delivery will no doubt be subject to the combined vagaries of the holiday season and snow disruption, I’m kind of assuming I won’t see it this week). Fortunately, I have two weeks of arrears to get through, which includes a whole bunch of X-books and a few other titles worth singling out, so plenty to work on here…
Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #513 – A curious book, this. It’s picking up its numbering from Daredevil, and the basic premise is that the Black Panther is trying to take over as the local superhero of Hell’s Kitchen now that Daredevil is out of the way. But although Foggy Nelson puts in a brief appearance, it’s really a case of the Panther taking over Daredevil’s setting, rather than his supporting cast or his storylines. In fact, it’s an equally direct sequel to Doomwar (the recent Black Panther mini), which apparently ended with T’Challa more or less wrecking Wakanda’s economy in order to defeat Dr Doom, and being kicked out. So they’re going the back-to-basic redemption route with T’Challa; fair enough, so far as it goes. Strictly speaking he’s not even calling himself the Black Panther any more, since that’s meant to be his ritual title. He’s just a guy in a mask, with a civilian identity as a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo. (If you’re not familiar with the place, just bear in mind the useful rule of thumb: any country that claims to be a Democratic Republic almost invariably isn’t.)
WWE TLC 2010
For the second year running, the WWE is rounding off the PPV calendar with TLC – that’s Tables, Ladders and Chairs. It’s something of a throwback to a few years ago when wrestling featured completely insane (and shamelessly contrived) stunts on a semi-regular basis. The company has toned that sort of thing down substantially for a variety of reasons. For one thing, they’re now positioning themselves as a PG company. That decision wasn’t purely about supporting Linda McMahon’s senate election bid, as some fans seem to think; it’s also about placating the company’s licensees and trying to hang on to the kids who love John Cena as an audience for the future. Another factor is that the company seems rather more attentive to the risk of injury to its performers; their motivations for doing so may well revolve around minimising criticism of the company and making sure that vital headliners aren’t sidelined for months just for the sake of a throwaway moment, but the bottom line is the same.
So in theory TLC ought to be one of the better placed theme PPVs, based around gimmick matches that the company largely steers clear of. The name derives from a match which was originally conceived for a three-way tag-team feud between the Hardy Boys, the Dudleys and Edge & Christian, back in 2000. The ladders are self-explanatory; ladder matches have been around for decades. Originally the idea was simply that you had to beat up your opponent badly enough to climb the ladder without interference and retrieved the title belt (or whatever it was), but over time we’ve seen increasingly creative use made of the ladders as a legal weapon. The Hardys were supposed to be the ladder match specialists. Tables come from the Dudleys, who had started out in the original ECW with a gimmick of throwing opponents through cheap plywood tables (of the sort that ECW had at ringside for the timekeeper and so on – it wasn’t quite so plainly contrived when it was first created). Wrestlers of the period rather liked this idea because it had the dual advantage of looking fairly spectacular while actually being a lot safer than taking the same move without the table in the way, since the table absorbs some of the impact. And chairs… well, Edge & Christian had been hitting people with them a lot in 1999-2000 and they needed something to represent the third team. Plus, it made for a neat “TLC” pun.
Charts – 12 December 2010
Well, this should be easy. We’re now into the dead space for new releases – as a rule, the record industry doesn’t bother releasing records in the immediate run-up to Christmas, and doesn’t bother starting a fresh round of promotion until the new year. There are exceptions, the main ones being Christmas singles (which in this day and age basically means Simon Cowell and records that exist solely to vex Simon Cowell), plus the occasional act that tries to take advantage of the promotional lull. But for the most part it all goes very quiet around Christmas.
The British get very worked up about the Christmas Number One, even though it’s rarely much of a race any more thanks to the scheduling of X Factor singles (last year’s bizarre mass-purchasing of “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine being an anomaly that won’t be repeated this year). This year’s Christmas chart is more than usually detached from Christmas itself; since Christmas Day is a Saturday, the Christmas Number One will be whatever tops the chart announced on Sunday 19 December, i.e. the record that sold most copies between 13-19 December. So this is the last “proper” chart of the year.
And depressingly, the last “proper” number one of the year is “The Time (Dirty Bit)” by the Black Eyed Peas. (more…)
House to Astonish Episode 51
We’re back after an accidentally long hiatus, with news on the Thor trailer, Marvel’s new launches, the Spider-Man musical, Mark Waid’s move from BOOM! and the changeovers behind the scenes of The Walking Dead. There are also reviews of Heroes for Hire, Wolverine: The Best There Is and Detective Comics Annual, and the return of the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. All this plus lots of poo, a steampunk Orko, Star Wars corridors, the festive perineum and dudes with their shirts off.
The podcast is here, or on Mixcloud here. Let us know what you think, either in the comments below, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
The X-Axis … uh, whenever
As I mentioned in the post below, we’re horribly off schedule here at House to Astonish. And to make matters worse, there’s no new comics this week, because apparently Diamond UK can’t deliver in snow. (Normally at this point I’d complain about the ineptitude of Diamond UK. But to be honest, since the M8 was closed for two days this week and the Transport Minister has just resigned over it, I’m inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt for a change.)
Fortunately, I still haven’t got around to reviewing last week’s books – which include the first issues of Wolverine: The Best There Is and Heroes for Hire, plus the second issue of Generation Hope – so I’m going to write about those instead. Still remember what happened in them? No? Well, rack your brains now…
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 #39 – I’ve complained from time to time about the shortcomings of Marvel’s recap pages (which are often considerable, though it varies). So it’s only fair to point out that Buffy the Vampire Slayer has the most useless recaps in Christendom. Now, granted, not many people are going to be picking up this issue – “Last Gleaming”, part four – as their jumping on point. The series is building to its climax. But even then, while the creators may think about this stuff on a full time basis, chances are that even the regular reader probably hasn’t thought about the book for at least three weeks, and the story itself isn’t going to screw up the collected edition by explaining the plot, and so that’s why we need recap pages.
Here is the recap from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 #39:
Housekeeping
It’s taken us longer than we expected to find a recording slot for the podcast so, uh, yeah… maybe Monday? We’ll keep you informed.
In the meantime, thanks to the snow disruption in the UK, our retailer didn’t get any new books this week at all. Fortunately, I’m a week behind with the X-Axis anyway, so I’ll have some (week late) reviews up today or tomorrow, including Generation Hope #2 and the debuts of Wolverine: Best There Is and Heroes for Hire.
We’ll get back on schedule soon, hopefully…
Charts – 5 December 2010
Simon Cowell’s annual karmic balancing exercise – “Heroes” by the X-Factor Finalists 2010 – remains at number one for a second week. This actually comes as something of a surprise, since it was dropping off pretty quickly on iTunes. But then, high profile charity singles are special. They sell to people who don’t normally buy singles, and to some extent they sell to impulse buyers in supermarkets. So the iTunes figures can turn out to be unrepresentative.
But only up to a point. The midweeks show the track dropping to number 5 on Sunday.
The best-selling “regular” single of the week is Ellie Goulding’s cover of “Your Song” at number 2, and that leaves the highest new entry to take the number 3 slot – “Poison” by Nicole Scherzinger.
Housekeeping (ii)
And as it turns out, even if I’d been in Edinburgh, the comics wouldn’t have arrived yet anyway. So an excellent weekend to go away after all.
Housekeeping
Just a reminder (or an announcement, for those of you who didn’t make it to the end of the last epic podcast) that Al and I are both out of town this weekend, so you’ll have to wait a bit longer for the next podcast and reviews.
Charts – 28 November 2010
The chart domination of X Factor hasn’t been quite so comprehensive this year as last, perhaps because the decision to sell performances as (chart ineligible) downloads has diverted some of the sales that might otherwise have gone to originals from the back catalogue. But it’s still a significant force. Between present contestants, past contestants, judges, and back catalogue material performed in the finals, it accounts for seven of the top 40 singles, with several more tracks having been promoted on the results show.
But this week, it’s that special time of the year when Simon Cowell strives for karmic balance. Yes, it’s the annual X Factor finalists’ charity single at number 1, and this year they’re once again raising money for the troops with a cover version of “Heroes”. Never subtle, that Simon Cowell.
